DARKEST DAY (2015)

Directed by Dan Rickard, Starring: Dan Rickard, Chris Wandell, Samantha Bolter. Horror, UK, 2015, 90mins, Cert 15.

Washed up on a deserted Brighton beach with no memory of how he got there, Dan (Dan Rickard) stumbles into the debris-strewn burnt out town. A devastating neurological virus has swept across the land - resulting in a zombie plague. After a chance encounter following a zombie-skirmish, he falls in with a small group of survivors who are hiding out in a small terrace house; plundering food and booze from nearby supermarkets and dodging the occasional rampaging zombie. But there is also a military presence in the town, and it soon becomes apparent that their mission is to hunt him down. Can Dan and his new found friends find sanctuary in the out of town ‘safe camps’ before the soldiers find him – and just why is he the army’s number one priority...?

Filmed largely over spare weekends, this micro-budgeted project (£1,000) originally started out way back in 2006 - when director Dan Rickard was just 19 years old. Enlisting the help and endless goodwill and perseverance of his friends (not to mention the occasional 50 or so volunteer zombie extras), it’s a minor miracle that the film actually got completed at all. What’s more surprising still is that it hangs together reasonably well and flows far smoother than its protracted production history would suggest. Combining a shooting schedule not too dissimilar to Peter Jackson’s first feature BAD TASTE, with a DIY-like approach to the visual effects, Rickard’s achievement is certainly commendable purely from a logistics point of view.

However, both his choice of subject matter and the largely improvised script upon which he hangs some (admittedly) impressive images on in amongst the shaky-cam approach to action, is far too much 28 DAYS LATER reliant and offers little in the way of originality in an already vastly over-populated zombie apocalypse ravaged sub-genre.

As the lead, Rickard himself admits he’s no actor (and he’d be right) – but his self-casting came from him figuring no one else could be persuaded to lay down in freezing sea-water for no money! The rest of the cast wade in as best they can with what little they’re given to work with. But if I said the line “Why’d you need artificial colouring in peas?” was the dialogue highlight for me, perhaps this might tell you something?

Visually though there are some strikingly effective images including a seemingly deserted road junction strewn with burnt out vehicles, (actually filmed in the middle of the day in between traffic incursions), and a derailed commuter train. There’s also some seamless additional CG soldiers (Rickard only had 3 army uniforms at his disposal). The Chinook (?) military helicopter shots (achieved using a model) are admirably resourceful – albeit displaying a tad too much manoeuvrability me thinks (but I’m no helicopter expert).

The zombies run full-pelt at the camera with often little more make-up applied than a smattering of red paint. There is a very brief glimpse of gut munching but nothing really juicy for gorehounds to salivate over.

At one point in the film, the survivors find themselves playing a game of cat and mouse with the tracking soldiers in a fully-stocked branch of the now defunct Blockbuster rental chain. It’s an amusing anachronism which seems somewhat appropriate given that Blockbuster and DARKEST DAY are essentially both examples of outdated concepts whose respective shelf-lives have now expired. 

But I’ve reviewed far worse, far bigger-budgeted flicks recently, so DARKEST DAY gets a (generous) three-stars rather than my increasingly common two-star rating of late.

***(out of 5*)

Paul Worts

  

POLTERGEIST (2015)

Directed by Gil Kenan, Starring: Sam Rockwell, Rosemarie DeWitt, Jared Harris. Horror, US, 2015, 93mins, Cert 15.

“They’re heeeere...” (again) inside the damn telly – but this time it's a Sony flat screen. Unfortunately, despite the upgraded technology - including post-conversion stereoscopy 3D – their return ultimately amounts to little more than a disappointingly ‘flat’ experience.

Tobe Hooper’s original 3-ring circus of special effects and Spielbergian saccharine is hardly the untouchable modern classic that rose-tinted 80’s apologists make it out to be. But at least it felt like an ‘event’ experience at the time: and the skeletons were more convincing (although the fact they were real perhaps helped). In director Gil (MONSTER HOUSE) Kenan’s 2015 reboot/regurgitation, the restless CG spirits resemble bargain basement House of the Dead video game cast-offs. It’s a shame producer Sam Raimi couldn’t have dusted off a few of the original Deadites from ARMY OF DARKNESS to try and salvage the ending.

The plot follows the 1982 blueprint faithfully, albeit with a few tokenistic contemporary upgrades: iPhone; drone and Dad’s (Sam Rockwell – criminally underused) redundancy forcing the family to up sticks and move to a less desirable neighbourhood.

To be fair, the early scenes are reasonably effective and do achieve a promising frisson of foreboding: ‘Carol Anne’ stand-in Madison (wide-eyed Kennedi Clements) pushing a stick into the flowerbeds only to watch it repeatedly pop back up (presumably courtesy of the buried corpses seething with rage under the earth); and the bedroom closet door knob that provides (literally) hair-raising static fun for Madison and her brother Griffin (Kyle Catlett). There’s also a couple of nice 3D jump scares (one of which references the stacked table set-piece from the original) and a squirrel attack to rival NATIONAL LAMPOON’S CHRISTMAS VACATION. 

But the clown scene is a let-down; a squandered opportunity given that there’s an attic full of the creepy things this time, and unlike ANNABELLE these can actually move. The other iconic sequence, the tree attack, is technically impressive, with the camera seamlessly gliding after the spindly CG branches pulling Griffin out of the house. But the tree lacks presence (no, I'm not going to say it's performance was wooden - have I just typed that?) and more closely resembles a de-needled Christmas leftover than an arboreal arbiter of the dead.

The team of paranormal investigators called in to retrieve Carol Anne –whoops, I mean Madison, barely register as characters (clearly the screenwriter didn’t give much of a hoot for them either) – apart from one frustratingly promising hallucination involving a power drill - during which I fleetingly entertained hopes of a Fulci-like CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD/GATES OF HELL 3D splatter gag. (Alas, no such luck).

And by the time Jared Harris shows up as professional ghost-whisperer Carrigan Burke - reprising Zelda Rubenstein’s line: “This house is clean” whilst wearing a silly hat - all hope is lost for the film as it’s sucked into a half-hearted CG light-show and the nasty damp patch of mould on the ceiling spits out ectoplasm and children (probably in disgust at how underwritten it feels its part is).

They were here in 1982. They were here again in 2015. On the basis of this lacklustre return I sincerely hope that’s the last we’ve seen of them.

**(out of 5*)

Paul Worts

WHAT'S LEFT OF US aka THE DESERT (EL DESIERTO) (2013)

Directed by Christopher Behl, Starring: Victoria Almeida, Lautaro Delgado, William Prociuk. Horror/drama, Argentina, 2013, 98mins, Cert 18.

Three survivors of the zombie apocalypse try to come to terms with the psychological and physical strains of an increasingly dysfunctional ménage a trois whilst living in the claustrophobic confines of a fortified house in an urban wasteland.

German writer/director Christoph Behl’s minimalist Spanish language art house zombie-film was screened at FrightFest 2013 under its original title: THE DESERT (EL DESIERTO). It played twice over the weekend as part of the Discovery Screen programme. I caught it on the Sunday evening, straight after watching several episodes of Adam Green’s horror-sitcom HOLLISTON. If I’m honest I didn’t care very much for Behl’s low-key sluggish offering at the time, but I was fully prepared to change my opinion when the chance came to re-watch it recently.

The isolation is conveyed through the sounds picked up on the external microphones set up around the house. The constant buzzing of flies provides a soundscape of decay, whilst the occasional grunt and wail conveys hints of external threat. Inside the house (where the majority of the film takes place), Axel (Lautaro Delgado) is the unfortunate ‘gooseberry’ in a love triangle, whose unrequited love for Ana is made all the more unbearable by the fact that his two companions, Ana (Victoria Almeida) and Jonathan (William Prociuk) are lovers. When he’s not spying on Ana, Axel passes the time by tattooing flies onto his body – with the idea being that once he’s covered every inch of his flesh in the inked insects he’ll leave the house.

Another pastime for all three residents involves filming private video diaries à la BIG BROTHER and then depositing the tapes in a padlocked suitcase to protect their privacy. Unfortunately, one of the housemates isn’t playing by the rules and is sneakily viewing the tapes – breaking a fundamental code in the ‘house constitution’. Meanwhile, Ana maintains an art project of her own - a memorial to each killed zombie – by recording a fictional name for each one on her wall of commemoration. As the film opens she is utilising Greek names. This theme continues when, following a ‘dare’ resulting from an ill-advised game of ‘truth or dare’, a zombie is captured and brought into the house. Ana christens him ‘Pythagoras’ (presumably because his mathematical namesake knew a thing or two about triangles, geddit? – these are the jokes folks – and trust me they’re few and far between).

The film plays like an overlong episode of THE WALKING DEAD for the art house crowd. It utilises the well-trodden (shuffled?) zombie apocalypse scenario (although doesn’t attempt any explanation or background as to how events led to this point) to isolate three characters and place them under a microscope to see how they’ll react. The problem is that whilst the film can survive without the apocalypse’s origins being sketched in, it suffers (in my opinion fatally) from failing to provide Ana, Axel and Jonathan with any kind of back stories. I found it a tough watch back in 2013 at FrightFest, and I found it an even tougher watch in 2015 as I gradually realised that the film’s shortcomings were all still very much prevalent. I simply couldn’t engage with the protagonists or their predicament on any level and as a result the film’s running time felt then (and still feels now) excruciatingly long and drawn out. It strives to say something profound and meaningful, but frankly I felt more sympathy for the chained-up ‘Pythagoras’ then I did for any of the other characters, and ultimately what it left for me just wasn’t enough.  

**(out of 5)

Paul Worts

A GOOD MARRIAGE (2014)

Directed by Peter Askin, Starring: Joan Allen, Anthony LaPaglia, Stephen Lang. Thriller, US, 2014, 102mins, Cert 15.

Shortly after celebrating her 25^th wedding anniversary, Darcy Anderson (Joan Allen) accidentally discovers that her coin-collecting accountant husband Bob (Anthony LaPaglia) has a very disturbing secret. Burdened with this dreadful knowledge, Darcy wrestles with her conscious as to what she should do next - and whether or not she and Bob can in anyway maintain what she’d previously thought was a ‘good marriage’.

Stephen King can’t have any complaints about this adaption of his novella as he wrote the screenplay. But unfortunately, even its creator can’t overcome the problem so many other screen translations have failed to tackle successfully in dealing with King’s writing: namely, the inability to convey the inner-workings of his characters. Case in point, A GOOD MARRIAGE. This is essentially a character study, inspired by a real-life scenario, which poses the ‘what if?’ question – a frequent starting point for King’s fiction. What if the person with whom you’ve shared your bed with for the past 25 years is actually a monster – what would you do about it and would anyone believe that you truly had no idea during all that time? On the printed page, King is a master at poking and probing into the psyches of his New-England protagonists – but on screen, without this interior reasoning, the result here appears flat and uninspiring.

“Oh honey, this is not some movie where the psycho husband chases the screaming wife round the house” says hubby Bob at one point in the film. No indeed it isn’t, but unfortunately any film with Stephen King’s name on the poster brings with it the expectation - at the very least – of chills, thrills and the occasional spill. (And the trailer is guilty of encouraging this misconception by the way).

Actress Joan Allen is indelibly etched in my mind’s eye as Tom Noonan’s blind girlfriend, listening to a sedated tiger’s heartbeat in Michael Mann’s MANHUNTER (1986). As with her befriending of Francis Dollarhyde’s ‘Red Dragon’, here too she plays a character blind (figuratively speaking this time) to the true nature of her companion. It’s a tricky role to pull off without the benefit of author King’s internal voiceover, but as the anchor of the film she does convey a stoic steeliness. Anthony LaPaglia on the other hand, has an impossible task trying to sell travelling accountant Bob (who, according to his colleague is very good at covering his tracks – nudge, nudge) as just being a normal guy on the level. And that’s before we learn of his preferences in reading material in the garage... Stephen Lang periodically pops up from time to time squinting menacingly in the distance as retired terminally-ill cop ‘Holt Ramsey’, whose sole method of deduction seems to boil down to combining Bob and Darcy’s first initials onto a scrawny piece of paper in order to find the identity of the ‘Beadie’ serial-killer. He does get to fulfil a more substantial purpose late on though, in a pivotal scene where he ends up acting as some kind of impromptu priest hearing confession and bestowing absolvement from his hospital bed. 

   

Apart from a couple of jolting dream sequences (clearly seized upon by the editor of the trailer, no doubt grateful for being thrown a visual bone or two), the film has the look and feel of a made-for-TV drama. The horrific nature of the crimes is largely swept under the carpet, except for a couple of Googled crime scene images, and could easily be screened at 9pm on any channel without a raised eyebrow. I did like the fact that a potential victim is seen reading an international bestselling novel entitled: ‘Bring me to my knees’ (both an awful foreboding visual pun and perhaps also a dig at the ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ phenomena.) 

Stephen King’s literary works have occasionally provided the catalyst for truly memorable big screen conversions, but unlike say Kubrick’s take on the husband as monster premise, A GOOD MARRIAGE is hardly a shining example.

**(out of 5)

Paul Worts

ZOMBIE RESURRECTION (2014)

Directed by Andy Phelps and Jake Hawkins, Starring: Eric Colvin, Jim Sweeney, Danny Brown, Horror, UK, 2011, 83mins, Cert 18.

George A. Romero has a lot to answer for. Actually that’s unfair. The current source of this never-ending infestation of zombie films should really be attributed back to AMC’s The WALKING DEAD. Case in point: ZOMBIE RESURRECTION. Although principal photography was completed back in 2011, I’m guessing this low-budget British entry into the gut-munching glut is only now seeing the light of day thanks to the success of that TV show. And whilst it teases to promise an original idea on the overly-familiar sub-genre tropes of zombification, it fails to capitalise on this concept leaving behind a fairly uninspiring trail of half-digested offal in its wake.

A vaccine against biological warfare incubates into a pathogen which brings about the zombie apocalypse. On infection day 458, a mixed-bag of eight survivors are being led across the ‘badlands’ (leafy British woodland), seeking refuge in the nearest uninfected hub. One of the group, ‘Sykes’, is a prisoner being escorted to his execution for being on the team responsible for unwittingly creating the plague. His military escorts are Major ‘Gibson’ (completely out of his depth and a complete arsehole to boot) and ‘Mac’, a gritty hardened combat veteran. The rest of the party are made up of broadly drawn soap opera-type caricatures such as Jade Colucci’s gobby Chav ‘Harden’ (channelling EASTENDERS Jessie Wallace); a golf-obsessed father and his innocent sixteen year-old daughter (played by an actress of 23); an idealistic university graduate named ‘Ghadhi’ (honestly); and a heavily pregnant, heavily religious mum-to-be.  

After several half-hearted skirmishes with the rotting and severely malnourished dead (during which ‘Major Gibson’ still manages to end up losing half a leg due to ‘Mac’s’ emergency machete amputation), the group escape to the seeming safety of an apparently abandoned school. It isn’t on either count.

The major selling point of ZOMBIE RESURRECTION is the idea there’s some kind of Messiah figure bringing the living dead back to living life by his touch, or as ‘Ghandhi’ puts it: “Jesus! Back from the back from the dead!” Erm, quite. Slight snag though (and no giggling at the back) as soon as a zombie is resurrected back to life they’re instantly seen as dinner for the remaining hordes and are promptly devoured before being resurrected again in a seemingly endless and downright disheartening cycle of death; rebirth; devoured death; rebirth...ad nauseam, ad nausea. (Is he the Messiah – or is he just a very naughty boy?)

Having waited till the final third of this otherwise largely pedestrian affair to introduce their ‘resurrection’ theme, first-time co-directors/writers Phelps and Hawkins do little with it before crow baring in a seemingly hurried conclusion which literally nails it’s metaphor to the wall in a botched attempt to inject a dose of gravitas into the otherwise supposedly blackly comic proceedings.

The initial decaying zombie prosthetics are nicely done before the generic ‘ripes’ (the fresher 28 DAYS LATER-type running gut-munchers) take over with their minimal make-ups and contacts.

It’s not every day a pregnant women is punched in the face and called a c#nt – but it’s fairly indicative of the script the cast are given to chew on. 

Tough-guy soldier ‘Mac’ hauls on his shoulders a massive rotting blanket of animal pelts which he affectionately calls ‘Bessie’. The makers of ZOMBIE RESURRECTION on the other hand carry on their shoulders the combined weight of countless rotten zombie films which have come before them - and this in the end leaves them with an insurmountable burden to breathe new life into an exhausted sub-genre long-since past resurrection. 

**(out of 5)

Paul Worts

  

SUMMER OF BLOOD (2014)

Directed by Onur Tukel, Starring: Onur Tukel, Anna Margaret Hollyman, Dakota Goldhor, Vanna Pilgrim, Melodie Sisk, Juliette Fairley. Comedy/Horror, US 2014, 86mins, Cert 18.

Having turned down far-too-good-for-him girlfriend Jody’s marriage proposal, commitment phobic Eric Sparrow (Onur Tukel) then promptly loses her to an old college flame. Realising too late that she was the best thing to ever happen to him, he unsuccessfully tries to win her back before turning to online dating and a series of disastrous encounters ensue. On the verge of being fired from his office job, his attempts to woo his office co-worker (whose photo he masturbates to in the toilet) seem to be getting him nowhere also, he takes a late-night stroll down by the Brooklyn Bridge where he finds a man with a gushing neck wound. As the man bleeds to death in front of him, Sparrow is so self-absorbed his assistance amounts to little more than offering his ex-girlfriend’s spare tampon to stem the blood. Returning to the same spot the next night and with his life at an all-time low, (we know this because he passes a road sign which reads ‘dead end’ – geddit?), he meets a vampire who (consentingly) bites him. Instantly transformed into a sex-god (albeit one with fangs and weird eyes) he is also bestowed the gift of persuasive hypnosis (handy when the landlord comes knocking for the unpaid rent) – but will it allow him to win back Jody?

Writer/director/co-producer and star Onur Tukel is clearly trying to channel Woody Allen with his talky indie-art house flick, and whilst it isn’t nearly as insightful and witty as it tries to be, Tukel’s Turkish vampire in Brooklyn by way of ANNIE HALL tale is reasonably entertaining – in spite of the central character. I say in spite of because Tukel’s Eric Sparrow is not someone you can easily root for. Instantly dislikeable on every level, it’s hard to fathom quite why girlfriend Jody (Anna Margaret Hollyman) not only stuck with Eric for three whole years, but also unfathomably entertained the notion of marriage and a family with him. It certainly wasn’t for the sex:  “Do you know how I keep dry when it’s hot and humid outside? I think of you.”(Ouch).

This exchange sums up one of the film’s essential weaknesses. The dialogue is often snappy, pithy and smart – but it rarely rings true in terms of what real people would actually say; no matter how clever it might read on the page. And for a dialogue-driven film, this at times becomes a real pain in the neck (sorry).

Sparrow’s transformation into a hypnotic undead love-machine (albeit one whose love-bites are a bit messy) is an embarrassing self-indulgent male fantasy, but he does eventually attempt to grapple with the morality of his blood-lust and seek some kind of redemption.

The neck biting (with traditional pinchers) serves up bloody arterial sprays and gory gloop, and there’s more than a sprinkling of vampiric bonking with Sparrow’s three ‘brides’ before they collectively decide to follow their (non-beating) hearts to find their true loves. Sparrow in turn follows suit to try to win back Jody (a task now made easier following the after-effects of having taken a bite out of her chiselled-jawed lover’s ankle). But can he commit when faced with the prospect of immortality?

Unlike Woody Allen, Turkel doesn’t set out to romanticise the city that never sleeps, so we get a grubby tungsten-stained yellow palette in place of Gordon Willis’ gorgeous monochrome cinematography. The sickly humid visuals complement the sweat-stained loose-fitting shirts of the lead protagonist – shirts that become increasingly blood-stained during the film – a fact which goes almost unnoticed by the blasé neurotic-obsessed inhabitants New Yorkers. 

It’s neither MARTIN nor MANHATTAN (nor MIDNIGHT SON for that matter), but at least it’s the dialogue that occasionally sparkles in SUMMER OF BLOOD rather than the vampires.  

***(out of 5*)

Paul Worts

(Originally published by FrightFest).

THE BABADOOK (2014)

Directed by Jennifer Kent, Starring: Essie Davis, Noah Wiseman. Psychological horror. Australia, 2014, 93mins, Cert 15. 

“If it's in a word, or it's in a look, you can't get rid of the Babadook.”

Six years after surviving a horrendous car crash in which her husband was killed, Amelia (Essie Davis) is still struggling to come to terms with her loss, and equally struggling to cope with her six year old son Samuel’s “significant behavioural problems”. Unable to get a good night’s sleep due to Samuel’s bad dreams about a monster coming to get him; Amelia’s increasingly fragile mental state begins to unravel further after Samuel chooses for his bedtime story a pop-up book not seen on his shelf before entitled: ‘Mister Babadook’.

Building on her award-winning short film MONSTER, writer/director Jennifer Kent’s debut feature is a disturbing portrait of a mother being slowly consumed by unresolved grief and a traumatised child haunted by inherited guilt and fear. The very real traumas of how Amelia’s sleep deprivation and encroaching social isolation seep into her dysfunctional relationship with son Samuel makes for uncomfortable viewing. Amelia’s descent into a maelstrom of exhaustive depression and then further down into even darker waters is brilliantly conveyed by Essie Davis. Young Noah Wiseman, making his feature film debut, is equally convincing as the demanding, terrified and ultimately heartbreakingly vulnerable Samuel: “My daddy’s in the cemetery. He got killed driving my mum to the hospital to have me.”

The domestic reality-based psychological drama is skilfully drawn with an assured hand. Embedding the relationship between mother and son so carefully, director Jennifer Kent’s reward for her meticulously layered groundwork comes with the introduction of ‘Mister Babadook’ and the escalating sense of unease that the viewer can’t help but share right from the moment the dreaded book is opened.

It’s a matter of interpretation as to whether the Babadook (a cross between comedian/card magician Jerry Sadowitz and Struwwelpeter) is merely a physical manifestation of the darkness festering within Amelia, or a tangible entity in its own right, but whatever it is, its status as an instant inductee into the stuff of nightmares hall of fame is guaranteed.

It’s rare for a film to deliver the goods in terms of creepy scares having firstly invested such care and attention on establishing a strong layered character dynamic. But director Jennifer Kent’s first feature offers up a potent blend of both. It’s by no means an ‘easy’ watch – but that’s a compliment. The psychologically damaging fireworks that explode between mother and son are as shocking and effective as the dread and ‘BOO!’ provided by the Babadook.

There are some nice ‘tip-of-the-hat’ genre moments such as the sequence where Amelia is watching ‘The Drop of Water’ segment from Mario Bava’s BLACK SABBATH on late-night TV, together with the bleary-eyed semi-conscious TV montages which include Lon Chaney’s unmasking as the PHANTOM OF THE OPERA and the alarmingly surreal but brilliant cameo appearance by the Babadook in amongst a Georges Melies film.

Allowances need to be made however for the EXORCIST-like trappings towards the end (perhaps a by-product caused by Amelia’s seeming penchant for late-night horror viewing – then again she also watches episodes of SKIPPY – so perhaps not). But apart from that, THE BABADOOK represents a rare 2-for-1 offer in modern genre cinema: an absorbing sometimes harrowing psychological drama with well-written credible characters, and a scary nightmare bogeyman that feels integral to the drama rather than just a cheap shock cipher.

(Top tip for parents: if your child is having nightmares or is convinced a monster is coming to get him/her, it is probably best to avoid reading ‘Mister Babadook’ to them as a bedtime story.)

****

Paul Worts